The orbital volume measurement in patients with ventriculoperitoneal shunt

Enophthalmos occurs from the increased bony volume or decreased soft tissue volume in the orbit and can be caused in patients with long-term ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt. This study tried to find out the change of orbital volume by measuring the orbital volume before and after operation in adult patients who underwent VP shunt for hydrocephalus. The 2 evaluators measured orbital volume by using ITK-SNAP 2.4 program with double-blind test for computed tomography images before and after operation targeting 36 patients over the age of 18 who underwent VP shunt with pressure-controlled valve from 2003 to 2011. Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test of GraphPad software was used to statistically analyze the difference in orbital volume change before and after operation. In case of mean pre-op orbital volume of total 36 patients, the right was measured as 23.72 ± 4.65 cm(3), the left as 23.47 ± 4.61 cm(3), the post-op right as 24.67 ± 4.70 cm(3), and the left as 24.18 ± 4.63 cm(3), showing no statistically significant difference (P = 0.106). The mean pre-op orbital volume of 14 people (28 eyes) followed for more than 11 months was 25.06 ± 4.58 cm(3) in the right and 24.4 ± 5.02 cm(3) in the left and the mean post-op orbital volume was 27.0 ± 4.28 cm(3) in the right and 25.76 ± 3.92 cm(3) in the left, showing statistically significant differences in the change of the volume before and after shunt operation (P = 0.0057). In patients who maintain long-term shunt devices after VP shunt, remodeling of matured orbital bone may be caused due to the change in pressure gradient between cranial cavity and orbit and the possible occurrence of resulting secondary enophthalmos by increased orbital volume should be considered.